A Review on Waterflooding Problems in Nigeria's Crude Oil Production

Abstract

For many reasons, a reservoir may approach the end of its primary life having recovered only a small fraction of the oil in place. Occurrence of this makes secondary recovery operations feasible and economically attractive through waterflooding. Waterflooding is dominant among fluid injection methods and is responsible for the current high level of production rate of crude oil. Nigeria's current average crude oil production is estimated at 2.2 million barrel per day and its' reserve at 38.4 billion barrels. The problems associated with waterflooding and oil production are formation damage, scale deposition and corrosion of well tubular. These problems are costing the oil industries a huge loss annually, this article suggests control and monitoring of these problem through modeling and simulation of oil reservoirs in Nigeria oil fields.

Keywords:

• Waterflooding
• crude oil
• formation damage
• scale formation
• corrosion
• reservoir
• OOIP

The authors would like to thank the Federal University of Technology, Minna and the University of Lagos, Lagos for supporting this research work.